Breathe Me
by LeontinaStardust
Summary: The war left Harry more deeply scarred than anyone could ever imagine. EATING DISORDERS. SELF HARM.


_Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter, and I gain no profit from my writing._

_Warning – This deals with eating disorders and self-harm. Please do not read if you find this triggering. I am in a bad place right now and this has influenced this piece, so there will be a lot of angst and no happy ending. Once again, please leave now if you will find this triggering; I don't want to bring anyone else down._

**X**

Harry didn't know when it had first started. His aunt and uncle wouldn't feed him a lot when he was younger; his uncle would say he was a worthless runt who didn't deserve to eat. Worthless. That was how he felt. Worthless.

He was worthless because he had led an innocent teenager to his death. He was worthless because he had fallen for a wicked trick and gotten the only person who would love him unconditionally killed. He was worthless because he hadn't killed Lord Voldemort quick enough; he had allowed him to kill all those poor muggles, allowed his Death Eaters to ravage Hogwarts and take the lives of so many young students who had so much to live for, and the adults who had to put their lives at risk because he wasn't good enough. He was good enough to kill the Devil of the Wizarding World but he wasn't good enough to save innocent souls. He wasn't good enough to eat.

Harry had moved to the countryside after the war, living in a small cottage alone. He had turned down Ginny Weasley after she tried to rekindle their relationship; she deserved better than him, and she was happy with Neville Longbottom now; a true hero. Neville had always been brave but he never shone until the Final Battle when he proved himself as a true Gryffindor. Harry had always shone for something he had done as a baby, yet he didn't really have any reason to be so looked up to now. Killing one man was nothing to be proud of when he let so many others die.

Harry had placed wards around his home so nobody could enter; not even his friends. They sent letters to each other; Harry's containing lies and false hope, and excuses as to why they couldn't see him. He just couldn't face the Weasley's now, not after Fred's death. Likewise, he couldn't go anywhere magical, knowing he would run into someone who had lost a loved one because of him. The only place he went now was the chemist and the gym.

Harry didn't consciously remember when he had started not to eat. After the Final Battle, his appetite certainly went, and he didn't think it ever returned. Every time his stomach would growl, or whenever he looked at food which looked oh-so tempting, a voice in his head would remind him that he was worthless, that he didn't deserve to eat. It told him he deserved the pain, and he was better off wasting into nothing. He was nothing, and that's what he had to be.

Nearly every day was the same; he would wake up and weigh himself, the numbers blurring in front of his eyes, instead reading 'fat'. He would slash himself with a blade, carving a word into his skin, like 'failure', 'freak' or 'useless' and then he would shower, letting the blood wash away before weighing himself again, and then scowl as he looked in the mirror as he passed, seeing how far away he was from nothingness. He was too big, too much of something he didn't deserve. A cup of black tea would follow, sometimes with a slice of apple, and then he would head to the gym, spending hours at a time there, watching the machine show him how many calories were leaving him. He would work out until he was exhausted, ignoring the concerned looks the regulars gave him and secretly Obliviating the ones who looked like they were planning to get involved. They didn't really care about him; they only wanted to make themselves feel better. They didn't want to watch somebody lose their life, but Harry had already let so many people die. He was spurred on to exercise by the voice; the voice which told him to carry on, and to work away his fat, his skin, his life.

After the gym, Harry would head home and drink some more black tea, eating only a bit of lettuce or a few grapes. He had made a pledge to go vegan; that way he wasn't involved in the torture and deaths of the animals, and at the same time he was escaping food which was so much higher in fat and calories. He spent the evening cutting again, reopening the words carved on him, just to remind him of what he was, and he would spend most of the evening wide awake, trying to fight off the hunger pains and reminding himself he deserved it all.

He had bad days as well; days where he couldn't stop himself ripping up the floorboard and grabbing anything he could from his stash, eating the cakes and chocolate and unhealthy foods as quick as he could, forcing it down his throat, before the tears would come after the realisation hit, and then he would run to the toilet and push his fingers down his throat and take enough laxatives to make sure they would work. He couldn't allow his body to get even bigger.

He could feel his body protesting to the abuse he was inflicting upon it, and he tried to ignore the pain and his exhaustion. He tried to ignore the fact his hair was thinning and the bruises he was coming out with. Instead he focused on his collar bones and hip bones, and how his ribs stuck out, and if they could get to the stage of nothingness, then the disgusting fat around the rest of his body could surely follow. He just had to work harder, eat less and let the voice tell him what to do.

The day he collapsed meant that the wards failed. Unknown to him, Hermione Granger had alerts on which allowed her to know if that had happened. She arrived as quickly as she could, and it was her scream that brought Harry slightly back to reality. The woman managed to get Harry to the local muggle hospital where he woke up with Hermione and Ron by his side and tubes stuck in him.

Harry tried to scream at them, but his voice was too hoarse, and when Hermione finally broke down in tears, so did he for allowing his friends to see him that way. He knew he wasn't where to wanted to be yet, and he wanted everyone to see him at the end, not at the point where his suffering was so evident. He didn't want anyone else to be hurt by him again, but once again he had failed, so using as much energy as he could manage, he apparated, landing in a forest thick with trees. He ripped the tubes away from him and broke down, rocking himself in a ball on the floor.

He had never wanted death so badly, but he knew to kill himself now would be cowardice; he wouldn't have suffered enough for all the lives he had taken. He needed to become nothing, no matter how much it hurt, and he had to do it alone.

He moved house again, not giving any clue as to where he had gone. It was in the very South of England, as far away as Hogwarts as he could be. He picked up his old routine, only this time the cuts when deeper, the words got nastier and he pushed himself even harder.

For somebody who spent so much time at the gym, it seemed fitting for it to be the place where Harry felt his limbs to feel heavier than before, for his whole body to ache and feel everything inside him twisting into painful knots. After that, everything seemed to be a blur of flashing sirens, sobbing figures and white walls.

When he felt the strength returning to him, he apparated away, ready to start the whole cycle again. He would waste away and take the pain, shrink down into skin and bones and finally become the thing he deserved to be; the worthless runt who existed before the Magical World embraced him. He wouldn't be the Boy-Who-Lives, the useless wizard who dragged the Wizarding World into a dark pit before freeing them; he would simply be Harry, the boy who was simply nothing.

**X**

_I know that wasn't really long, but I wanted some thoughts out of my system. If I didn't have enough stories on the go, I would be tempted to do a chaptered story based around this idea, but maybe in the future._


End file.
